


I Hate Everything About You

by Needle_Bones



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 01:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3750538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Needle_Bones/pseuds/Needle_Bones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three Days Grace song used for inspiration? Three Days Grace song used for inspiration. Okay so, this is kind of a pre-everything fic. See, I once purposed the idea that pre-treatment!Trager and Mr. Jeremy Blaire had a bit of a... history with one another. (A Blaire roleplayer also supplied the idea for a little of Jeremy's dialogue so thank you, friend~). This is sort of based off of that general idea. Because I'm a bad person. (Also, this whole thing is headcanon city, just so you're aware.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Hate Everything About You

"Do not pass him anything but soft paper - no staples or paperclips,” said the orderly in that clipped way that suggested he was being bothered. “Absolutely no sharp objects. Do not touch him or allow him to touch you. If he tries to hand you anything, do not accept it.”

Jeremy Blaire just sighed, keeping his hands in his pockets when they stopped outside the cell door. “I know the drill,” he said, having heard it all countless times before.

It had been the right thing to do. Of course it had. Murkoff did not take kindly to being stolen from. If he'd simply had him arrested, it wouldn't have been long before the report came back: Ex-Murkoff Executive Richard Trager Killed In Prison.

He was well aware that Murkoff had their ways, and Blaire wasn't exactly biting the bit to see them demonstrated.

Locking him up here was the most compassionate option. At least, that's what Jeremy kept telling himself. So why couldn't he calm down? God, it was like a pack of rats running around in his stomach.

The orderly unlocked the door, indistinguishable from any of the others around it save for the numbers '24-601' in chipped paint across the metal, and Jeremy stepped inside before he gave himself too much time to think.

“What is it, Blaire?” Trager asked in a tone that could have passed for professional under different circumstances. For now, though, Jeremy flinched at the blades in his voice. Thankfully, Richard didn't see it. He'd returned to staring at his hands, clasped and locked to the table in front of him with thin metal cuffs.

Jeremy lingered by the closed door, looking him over. The patient's uniform didn't suit him in the slightest. Neither did the faint scars caused by IV line after IV line being shoved into his skin, pumping whatever chemical cocktail they had on hand into his veins.

Trager's shoulder-length, near-white hair was bound back near the base of his skull and Jeremy wished he couldn't see his eyes so clearly. There was something...  _wrong_  in his gaze now. It wasn't anything he could name on his own but the warmth was gone, replaced by something that made him tense and uneasy – something that made the rats scurry faster.

He took a slow, deep breath. “I thought I should... see how you were doing,” he said, and waited to be screamed at. In all the time they'd known each other, Jeremy had heard him angry enough to raise his voice on all of three occasions, one of which he'd been directly responsible for.  

Trager didn't yell, though, so he risked moving to sit across the metal table from him. 'Richard Trager' on the dotted line, but 'Ricky' tangled up in the sheets at two in the morning, or over a static-filled phone line while Jeremy made sure that PhD in psychology didn't go to waste. Friend and therapist from day one.

“Well, I'm still alive.” Ice. Pure ice.

The rats were gnawing at his intestines, pressing little hands and claws into his lungs.

“Trager...” Distance. Always distance. “You squirreled away 4.6 million dollars into a private account. Did you really think no one would notice that just because it wasn't in your name?”

A sigh, one that rattled in his chest. “I didn't expect any of this, Jer,” Richard said in a voice like salt and broken glass. He looked up at him then, dark eyes dull and immeasurably tired. Hours upon hours of staring at that damn screen, most likely. There were dark, ugly bruises wrapping around his too-thin wrists. He must have struggled. “Maybe I should have. I didn't think you'd just...”

He trailed off and a rat sunk its needle teeth in.

“Rick, I didn't have a choice here.” Breathe. Control. “Murkoff does not care for being stolen from. And they would have come back on me for hiding it if they could prove I knew – and you know they could.” He paused, considering. They didn't monitor in the cells during visits like this but Jeremy had never been one to talk freely within the walls. Too much of a risk. Still... “I never meant for this to happen. Y-you have to know that.” That was another thing about Jeremy Blaire – he never stuttered. “If I'd thought -”

“Jeremy...” Too tired to yell. That was the only reason he hadn't. He caught his gaze and held it. “Leave.”

Blaire leaned across the table before he could stop himself, wrapping his fingers around Trager's arm. “Ricky -” A nick-name locked down for when they'd both had a little too much to drink. A slip-up. “I'm sorry.”

Something flashed in Trager's eyes but it was gone too fast for Jeremy to place it. It may have been anger or pain. In any case, he was about to pull his hand back when Richard trapped it under his, the skin jarringly cold to the touch.

_Now or never, 'Jer'_.

There was really nothing to say about the situation – nothing that would make the reality less horrific – but Jeremy talked anyway. “You know, I... I always really liked you, Ricky. Maybe not love, exactly... heh.” He stopped, swallowed hard, stared at their hands and tried again. “But I've never been this close with someone before – or at least, it's been a long time.” He looked at him then, off-balance and honest. “And I fucked up. I fucked you up … and I'm just... Ricky, I'm  _sorry_.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The executives' offices were on an upper floor in the back of the building. There was no one around at this hour so there was no one to hear when Jeremy slammed the door closed with enough force to rattle the glass. There was no one to hear when he threw a heavy binder across his cluttered desk, or cracked the window glass with an old textbook, or pulled the bookcase down. No one to hear him screaming until his lungs burned.

_Calm down._  He dug his nails into the back of his neck, sitting on his knees on the low carpet, breathing too hard and surrounded by splintered wood and scattered pages of old reports. Those damn screens were just the first part. He'd seen the schedule. They'd try to use him in the Engine before too long and what then?  _What the hell did you do, Blaire?_

At the very least, he wasn't crying. His throat didn't ache from screaming, his office wasn't trashed, and he was  _not_  crying.

_Congratulations, Jer. You managed to fuck up the one guy who actually wanted to be around you. Way to fucking go._

Minutes passed and eventually he could breathe again. He'd stand up, dust himself off, fix what he could and lock down everything else. And in the morning, no one would know that Richard Trager had ever meant a damn thing to him.


End file.
